Napa Valley Bee Company

Pannin' the Mandarins, with Serge...

As far as I can see the general public just isn’t understanding what’s going on with the seedless mandarins. How ironic is this...?  Yesterday I was teaching an urban beekeeping class with The Solar Living Institute in San Francisco and during the snack break half the class breaks out their little Cuties. I get it, Cuties taste good, they're easy to peel, good for you, and relatively cheap. However, there are a lot of other hidden issues not necessarily apparent to the average consumer. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve packed down my fair share of Cuties. When they first hit the scene I was buying em’ by the case load at Costco. I once ate 27 in a day but that was an experiment, I don’t recommend it.

Honestly, I don’t know all the particulars with what’s going on between the seedless mandarin growers and the beekeepers. What I do understand is that if legislation is put in-place to dictate where we can or can’t keep our bees based on a few seeds in mandarins; we’re screwed. I already have a major headache with my neighbors all up in my bee grill about the hives in my front yard without having to worry about the farmers in the rural areas too. Aren’t the farmers and the beeks meant to be on the same team anyway?

The Main Mandarin Man Serge has kind of laid it all out here for us.

And please..... I urge you to first cut and coagulate your relationship with any and all mandarins. I know, I know,  it’s rough I understand, but there’s numerous other citrus in the sea. Secondly, tell all your friends to stop buying them too. Lastly,  do as Serge suggests and write to Steve Lyle – even though it may be a little late –  tell him to swallow a few seeds to save a bees.

Here’s what Serge says:

The issue of Seedless Mandarins and Honey Bees has not gone away.  Although the ruling proposed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture may appear benign on the surface, it is a dangerous precedent-setting text that will affect the rights of individuals and the health of honey bees.

Background
 In recent years, some citrus growers established groves of seedless mandarins in areas that historically welcomed honey bees.  The growers were hoping to generate greater financial gains with this fruit than with seed carrying varieties.  Unfortunately, they did not do their homework and did not take the precautions that are necessary to ensure that the fruit remain seedless (in a nutshell: the precautionary measures amount to preventing cross-pollination of the flowers of these trees by compatible pollen sources, or to selecting varieties that do not set seeds).  Consequently, the fruit that is produced by these “seedless” mandarin growers may contain seeds, and they did not make the larger financial gains they were hoping for.

 AB771
 To compensate for their blunder and to avoid the costs of netting their trees, the seedless mandarin growers have asked the state legislature to ban the presence of honey bees in areas that extend for two miles around their orchards.

A Seedless Mandarin Grower-Beekeeper co-existence work group was organized but failed to arrive at a compromise between these parties.

As a result, and as mandated by AB771, the Agricultural Secretary issued a ruling in this matter.

 The proposed regulation
 Although the proposed ruling no longer requires the mandatory removal of bee colonies from the areas that surround seedless mandarin orchards, it could give legitimacy to the request of the citrus growers, and may still be changed under the pressure of the citrus growers after this period of public comment. 

 What is at stake
 If the attempt by the seedless mandarin growers to ban honey bees from large areas of land is allowed to stand in any way, shape or form, it could limit the individual rights of those who live or work around their groves.  The burden to generate greater financial gains for the citrus growers would in effect be placed on others who are unfortunate to be around them.

The implementation of such a rule would undoubtedly affect the health of pollinators because large expanses of land that are critically important to the nutrition of honey bees during their period of spring development would no longer be accessible to honey bees.  Ultimately, our food crops and our entire environment would be negatively impacted.

The most dangerous part of this ruling is that it could set a precedent.  Indeed, though the proposed rule only applies to seedless mandarins and to four counties, the text is written at the state government level.  Considering all the potential seedless crops that are presently being developed in research facilities and considering the spread of genetically engineered crops that are incompatible with organic farming practices, the risk of further decreasing bee habitats and of affecting the rights of people throughout the entire state is alarming and should not be overlooked.

 Act now
 All, beekeepers or not, should be concerned and should voice their opposition.

Please call, write or email your comments immediately to the address below and make a point of asking for the complete dismissal of the seedless mandarin growers’ request (the period for comments ends on April 13):

 Steve Lyle, Office of Public Affairs, Department of Food and Agriculture, 1220 N Street, Room 400, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916)654-0462, FAX (916) 651-7417,

Email: LegislativeOffice @cdfa.ca.gov.

In his absence, you may contact Carla Sanchez, LegislativeOffice at (916) 654-0321 or Email: LegislativeOffice@cdfa.ca.gov.

Questions regarding the substance of the proposed regulation should be directed to Carla Sanchez.

Thanks.
Serge

A picture is worth a 1000 words....
Here's what we're talkin' about:

Cuties store display at the St. Helena Safeway

Darling Clementines at the Ferry Terminal Market San Francisco

2 for $6 at Ralph's in Napa

Ad special $5.99 Cuties Whole Foods Napa

Cuties at the once Luckys now Albertsons in Napa

Cuties display at the Napa Safeway

Buy em' by the bag

Or buy em' by the pound

 Just remember what goes around, comes around. Busted! Someone bought these over at Christmas. California Clementines, Natures prefect fruit.... right!

 

Rapping with Wouter

Here's a conversation with Ariella Chezar and Wouter Vuyk via e-mail. What I have decided to do in place of doing a normal posts are throw out interesting conversations I have with other beekeepers via e-mail. I'll give ya' a little background to keep you up to speed, don't worry...

I met Wouter Vuyk and his father Vouter at a Ariella's wedding last September in the Berkshires. It's funny because Ariella had mentioned her relatrive that keeps bees in Holand a number of times before  actually metting Wouter in person. I may have evn tried his honey before I met him too. Of course I went into my whole speal about how theres no money in honey it's all in the bees to find out Wouter was the largest, most sucessful honey brooker in the Netherlands. WhatdaIknowanyway?....
In the end Wouter and I really hit it off, before we left we even rented mountain bikes, drank a lot of beer, dropped a wallet and glasses down a storm drain, hit the numerous used bookstores in the berkshire area, and even got a speeding ticket together. Yeah, yeah, I was driving....
Enevitably Wouter ended up in Napa before heading home where he spent a little bee time with both my beekeeping class at the St. Helena Montessori and at Nimbus Arts. The students loved him and for awhile after he left it was all Wouter. Wouter, Wouter.  Awesome guy, fabulous beekeeper! Thanks Ariella for getting married.

There's the back story, here's the e-mails:

Ariella first:

Hey Rob!

I've been spending the last few months reading up on all things bees and getting wildly excited. I'm getting some Buckfast's from Texas and some Italians from Connecticut, both in about two weeks.

Here's my question. Do you know any sources for organic beeswax foundation? I've been reading a lot about the nasty crap that's in all foundation and haven't been able to find a source. Wouter makes his own, as do some groovy beekeepers in Hawaii, but no one seems to sell it. Any thoughts?

Hope you are doing great.

Big hug,
Ariella
Ariella Chezar Design      
www.ariellaflowers.com

My reply:

say now ariella,

excited you are getting bees.
the wax thing is a real issue.
it's difficult for 2 reasons:
when installing a package i often see the wax foundation slump under the heat generated in the hive when wax foundation isn't built out by the bees.
if this happens it can be a real nightmare to manage.
i suggest my students use the plastic to start until the bees build it out then place wax starter strips in between the drawn frames and slowly cull out the plastic.
i believe, like rudy, that bees should be let to create their own wax.
this year all i have done is made what we are calling janky frames. i use an empty frame with a small amount of wax (burr comb) i harvest from the hive, roll into a small snake-like shape and stuff in the grove of the top bar of the frame.
if placed in the brood chamber the bees will start building down from the strip in a matter of days. it has been working great!  it's a fabulous way to expand the brood chamber in the spring without dividing the brood with foundation. it allows the bees to continue to cluster keeping the brood warm.
organic wax.......
i'm not sure there is such a thing. just because you are practicing organics on your farm the bees can fly up to 3 miles away to your neighbor"s monsanto lot. i guess if you have a surplus of wax you can make your own but i think the press that imprints the cell is really expensive. plus then you get into what is the best cell size. making your own wax foundation sounds so labor intensive, just keeping my bees healthy and happy is all consuming i can't imagine....
plus sharing wax is a good way to easily spread disease, i just let my bees build their own.
while i was back there last summer barbara gave me a book by a guy named gunther hauk. toward saving the honeybee
it's fabulous, he talks all about the wax production in bees and has some great ideas about keeping bees, some real woo woo ideas too. he came and spoke here last month. i think he has a little too much love in his beekeeping and could use a little more science.

this is a janky frame where i just pinched a 3 inch section of wax and stuffed it in the grove of the top bar.
the bees built out this much after about 4 days.

here is another....  3 days

and yet another....
i'm really sold on this idea. for years i have been using starter strips it's just this year i went jank.

you can see where i just pinched a section of wax attached to the top bar and the bees started building.

if you use wax foundation to start with make sure its attached to the frame well before introducing the bees.

cant you get any bees in the berkshires?
i find the best bees come from their own indigenous area.
although i like the idea of having some of brother adam's love in my bees.
my mission has been to breed strong survivor stock from my own indigenous bees, being very selective about the stock we import.

say hello to everyone.
wouter coming soon?
always welcome here.

if anything else comes up please feel free to call or write:

my bee best,
rob

Wouter says:

hello rob you are still in the bees thanks for your answer to Ariella it it certenly a way to do it ,but i think.there are 2 reasens not to do: 1 is varoa and 2 is extracter or not strong enouf.
to keep varoa down you need to cut out drown comb ,because if you have drown all over your frames it is a lot of work to cut drowns out,,so better put special drown frame you take out and feed to your chicken they lovethe larfs and it is a way to count varoa mite in summer time and prevent swarming,ofcause
beekeeping in holland is not the same as california. question:are the bees building alot of drowns if you let them bild wild? if not you can do it but put wire in it to make frames strong and do put drown foundation in your hive.
to buy foundation i know they sell in germany organic i will try to find adress and maybe they can sent but to late for this season, hope to see you this summer  rg wouter
Verstuurd vanaf mijn iPhone wouter

And Me back to He and Ariella:

Hey Now Wouter!

I got your  phone message today.
How the hell are ya?
And your bees?

Bee crazy here, working on 4 structural extractions, grabbing swarms, plus trying to keep ahead of my own bees.
I used formic acid on my most varroa ridden colony last , works pretty good.
I dropped the acid last fall,  luckliy I was able to re-queen early this year with a swarm cell which really helped out with the intense mite loads compared to last year.
Personally, I find that my strongest colonies are ones that just co-exist with the mites.
It's one thing if the varroa are a load on the bees with a lot of curly wing. Or even worse,  dead bees in the cells of the brood chamber with their tongues out = HBPMS.  honeybee parasitic mite syndrome which is essentially a long title for when varroa distructor collapses your colony. From my experience I have found that once to that point, especially late in the fall, game over - basically the colony is CTD = circling the drain at that point. I haven't seen em' bounce back. This is why I decided to try and rescue a colony last fall because it was too late in the season to re-queen.  They came out of winter bursting, i pinched the old genetically compromised queen and i threw them a new queen cell asap.  Last I checked they were do fabulous. The key is to be responsible and re-queen first thing in the spring before they spit out too many deficient drones. The drones that will inevitably be mating with all the other stronger stock in the hood.
This particular colony was a great test hive because the bees were a swarm from last spring of unknown origin.  They weren't a group I was overly attached to because they never really built up last year. More importantly they had a lot of curly wing but no signs of more advanced stages of varroa infestation going into the winter.

WAX:
Don't you find if you put just a wax starter strip in between the brood they'll build brood comb?
I have been even going extra janky and nicking the stirrers from Starbucks and using them as starter strips. Haven't seen the results but I hear it works.
It's funny because we have been calling the janky frames J-frames which have become the new darlings of the backyard beekeeper in the area.
J frames have to be placed between two frames of brood not out side the brood chamber.
When placed between the brood and the pollen /nectar frame I find the bees will definitely build drone comb.
Which is a good thing if you like to cull out the drones as varroa control.
Some people feel you should be able to control varroa through screened bottom boards and selective breeding only.

What do you think about this whole J frame revolution?

I'm half way there, I have some really strong local stock and some other stuff that is not so great. I have been running the not so great stuff as 2 queeners with amazing results. I'm thinking it may be the new wave of keeping bees.

I agree with you when it comes to running starter strip frames through the extractor,  they always blow-out and make a huge mess. If I use them in honey production I either squeeze the honey out in a press, or use it as cut comb. When I suggested it to Ariella to allow the bees to create their own wax I was thinking of her just building up her brood chamber, doubt she'll be collecting honey this year anyway. Out here on the west side we work on building package colonies up for a year, working towards getting them into two deeps then hit em with a honey super in the following spring.

You got any other Netherlandish hot tips for me?

Any plans to come over?
How's pops?

Rob

Wouter with the sweet bling bling without all the painful sting stings, at the College Ave. apairy.

Wouter's bees

Riding Like a rockstars.


Being pulled over by a cop car.

Check out this Quick time video {1 frame every 3 secs} of the family portraits at Ariella's wedding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z0XEuyUtzE 

See Wouter in frames 48 thru 52....

From left to right:
Back row: Brian, my son Davis, my wife Meg, I forget, I dunno, Sarah, Areilla's sister Simone, I dunno, Winonna, I dunno,I dunno, Tarame, I dunno, I dunno. Max.
2nd row: Young girl in green I dunno, younger girl in green I dunno, Ruby, Adden Oak, Bride, Groom, I dunno, girl in green I dunno, I dunno, and I dunno.

Here....  this tells you a llittle about Wouter....

 

He's the tallest guy I have had in my house to date. Sixteen centimeters taller than Tony and Stephen.